Join Rev. Jesse Jackson & Dozens of Protesters For a Visit Schwarzeneggers Neighborhood
Last Minute Plea to Save the Life of Kevin Cooper Set to Die Tuesday at 12:01 AM
Coopers Attorneys Ask for Two More Weeks to Perform Tests That May Prove Innocence
Thousands of People From Around the Globe Including Mayor of the Austrian City Where Schwarzenegger Launched his Bodybuilding Career Have Appealed to the Governor
'He is not seeking mercy but justice.' Jackson said after his visit with Cooper on Friday in San Quentin. 'I told him to prepare to live, not die.'
WHO: Join Dozens of Protesters Expected at Near the Doorstep of Gov. Schwarzeneggers Brentwood Home for a Last Minute Plea to Save the Life of Kevin Cooper
WHEN: 5 PM Sunday, February 8th
WHERE: Near Home of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger
Mandeville Canyon Rd and Chalon Rd., Brentwood
DIRECTIONS: 405 Fwy, Exit Sunset Blvd.
West on Sunset 4-5 miles to Mandevile Cyn.
North on Mandeville Canyon Rd 1.6 Miles to
Chalon Rd in Brantwood.
BRING SIGNS and Your Letters for the Govenor
WHY: There is a phone outside the execution room to alllow to Governor to grant a stay of execution up until the last minute. Schwarzenegger has unilaterally denied clemency without a formal hearing, as is the custom in California. Protesters will call on the Governor near his Brentwood home to reconsider his unorthodox decision, which failed to consider the wishes of at least five jurors from Coopers death penalty trial who want the execution halted while previously-ignored evidence in the case is examined.
Nationwide, prosecutors have had the wrong man in 112 capital murder cases, forcing innocent men and women to spend years on death row facing execution for crimes they did not commit.
On February 10, the state of California plans to execute Kevin Cooper, a 45-year-old African American man who has been on death row for 20 years and whose case raises numerous questions about California's capital punishment system.
On Thursday, a former UPI reporter who covered the original Kevin Cooper trial stepped forward with new evidence. Kristina Rebelo, former UPI after her second sworn deposition revealing startling new evidence surrounding the multiple murder case. Kristina Rebolo says that a former San Bernardino Sheriffs Deputy, Albert Anthony Ruiz, told her flatly that 'Kevin Cooper did not kill that family.' Mr. Ruiz asserted that the wrong family was tragically executed in a drug-related retaliation, and that he was directed to plant evidence used to convict Kevin Cooper. Listen to the amazing account of Kristina Rebelo following a news conference in Los Angeles.
TO LISTEN GO TO:
http://www.flashpoints.net BACKGROUND: On the night of June 4, 1983, Peggy, Doug and Jessica Ryen and a houseguest were brutally murdered in San Bernadino County. The youngest member of the family, Josh Ryen, 8, managed to survive. When local police learned that Kevin Cooper had walked off the grounds of a minimum security prison just days before the murders, Cooper became the primary suspect - despite the fact that Josh Ryen told police and his grandmother that three white or Latino men had killed his family.
The State of California conducted DNA tests on Cooper, but the integrity of this evidence is highly questionable. Blood and saliva samples taken at the time of his arrest were released to a technician involved in the prosecution, and held for twenty-four hours without a court order or the knowledge of Cooper's legal team.
Clumps of long, blond hair were found in the hands of one of the victims. Photographs of this hair, which clearly does not belong to Cooper, were never shown to the jury. The prosecution has refused to allow testing that could determine just whose hair it is.
A pair of bloody coveralls submitted to the police by a woman claiming that they had been left at her house by her boyfriend around the time of the murders were tossed in a dumpster without any testing. The woman was never brought in to testify.
Sponsored by: National Lawyers Guild-LA
and the Rainbow Sisters Project
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